The time went by as quick as I thought it might. I didn't end up reading or doing as much blog writing as I thought. There was plenty to look at (see my post on rail). And there were plenty of interesting people.
In my section was a British-French couple retired to Thailand, next to us was a British mother visiting her son in Malaysia, a young Canadian on her O.E and a pair of women touring from the Ukraine.
After the long border crossing stop, we were given menus and dinner was delivered to our seats, once they attached the restaurant carriage and a whole lot more sleeper cars (up till then we were a two car train). After dinner I headed to the restaurant/bar carriage for a drink. The British guy was there and waved me over, so we sat there for an hour or so drinking the local Singha and having a yarn. After he left for bed a Japanese guy said hi and we chatted for a bit. There's definitely a touch of novelty in all this - meeting new people, seeing new sites, waving the bar man over with a pretend writing action like in the movies, then paying the bill with cash that has large numbers. What fun!
Back to my seat and the service guy had converted the seats in to beds. I was on a top berth. Every bed had a curtain, so the little bit of privacy was nice. I managed to sleep well, although I had to cheat again...
I woke up to a choice of breakfast options which were underwhelming but did the trick. Four hours later we arrived 1.5 hours late. Not bad, considering Thai railways need a lot of work (I could have run next to the train through much of the Bangkok section!)
Now I'm eating some good Thai next to the railway station with the Canadian and the Brit.
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